


Say I'm The Only Bee In Your Bonnet

by Laliandra



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-25
Updated: 2010-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:11:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laliandra/pseuds/Laliandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The One Where they meet <strike>waiting for</strike> on a train. For <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/7339.html?thread=10474155#t10474155">this prompt</a> at the kink_meme and its <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/7339.html?thread=11442859#t11442859">super-adorable</a> art fill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say I'm The Only Bee In Your Bonnet

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer. 1) Inception? Not mine! 2) I have never been on the New York subway 3) Fluffier than a marshmallow-whippedcream-kitten cloud.  
> Thanks to kaiserkuchen for encouragement and squee-sharing, and brimtoast for unknowingly aiding me by leaving print-outs of NYT crosswords around my house. All the clues are real, from the right day and everything...
> 
> Also check out the amazing [ podfic version](http://archiveofourown.org/works/531965)

Arthur had a system for riding the subway. He guessed the man sitting next to him must have the same one, they’d been riding the same train (the last possible one before rush hour starts) and sitting in the same seats (towards the end of the front car) for over a week now.

Arthur really, really wished this guy was a little less smart. It was not so much the guy, if he was honest with himself, because to call him easy on the eye would be an understatement. It was his music.

He always listened to the same kind of thing, trashy sounding; bass and the faint hum of repeated choruses over the top. Never quite loud enough to listen to properly, but loud enough (surely headphones should not be capable of transmitting that much noise) to be annoying. It was like having incredibly specific tinnitus. There was nothing to be done but read and bear it.

It started on Wednesday of week three. He was perusing the Dow Jones when a very loud, very _English_ voice said, “Are you done with the Arts?”

Arthur looked at the guy next to him, who was holding out his hand.

“Sorry?” he said.

The man grimaced and pulled out one of the ear-buds. “Hang on, wait, one minute.” He fumbled out his iPod, and the girl’s voice stopped asking Arthur to show him heaven. “I said, are you done with the Arts section on your lap there? I think I saw something about the new MOMA exhibition.”

Arthur was torn about what he wanted to know more, what a guy with Estuary vowels was doing on the A train , or what someone wearing a sports jacket to work cared about modern art. He settled for, “I haven’t read it yet, do you think you can have it done before you get off?”

The man raised his eyebrows.

By the time they reached his stop (two before Arthur’s, not that he’d been watching) the Arts section had given way to Sports and then Business. Arthur was resolutely not impressed.

They got quite the routine going over the next few days, passing parts of various papers back and forth without having to even look up. On Monday Arthur held out his hand for the Sports that the man had just closed and instead felt fingers curl round his outstretched palm. When he looked up he met a solemn face and wicked eyes.

“I feel sordid doing this without knowing your name. I’m Eames, nice sharing papers with you.”

Arthur shook his hand. “Arthur. Likewise”

&amp;&amp;&amp;

A week later Eames showed up in an eye-assaultingly yellow shirt that clashed so badly with Eames beloved green jacket that Arthur couldn’t stop himself. “Oh god, and I thought nothing could be louder than your music. Don’t they have a dress code in your office?” he said.

Eames gave him a really dirty grin. “Of course. But I can be extremely... persuasive.” He subjected Arthur to a thorough, lingering once over. “Just because I’m not a vision in grey...”

Arthur said, “Just remember who had been sharing their newspaper everyday,” and opened today’s copy with a crisp, satisfying snap.

A couple of minutes later Eames said, “Had been?”

Arthur lowered his paper, folded all the supplements neatly and placed them between his knees. Then he went back to the day’s headlines.

“Don’t think I’m discouraged by where you’ve put those,” Eames murmured, low, and then, much louder. “Arthur. My dearest. Light of my life. Please share your paper with me again.”

Arthur turned a page and did not even glance sideways, tempted as he was.

“Arthur, you are breaking my heart here. Arthur, really. Everyone is looking at you,” Eames said in a singsong voice. “Don’t make me beg in public, pet.”

The really good thing about having a large daily newspaper was that it was the perfect thing to hide a smile behind.

&amp;&amp;&amp;

The next day when Eames got on the train he already had his iPod on (rare, these days, he usually liked to say hi/something inappropriate) and was staring intently at the folded over paper in his hand. The crossword, Arthur saw as Eames sat down.

Arthur tried to read for ten minutes. Then he spent five watching Eames fill in the boxes out of the corner of his eye. He sighed and pulled the ear-bud of the ear closest to him. Eames’ pen stilled at the top of an ‘A’.

“Okay, you win. I’ll share mine if you share yours? Also, 10 down is ‘Fischer’. As in Bobby?”

The corner of Eames’ mouth tilted up. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist the dazzling combination of me and a crossword. Right up your street.”

Arthur frowned.

“You own a _Moleskine_,” Eames said, as if that explained everything. He handed over the paper and his pen. “Do you think you can have it done by the time I get off?”

Arthur said, “It’s only Tuesday. What kind of idiot do you take me for?”

Which made it a bit embarrassing when they reached Eames’ stop and he still had a few clues left to solve.

“Keep it,” Eames called over his shoulder as he left, smile very knowing.

At lunchtime Arthur found himself grinning at the sure, messy capital letters that Eames had filled all his answers in with. Arthur usually used pencil, but today he followed suit.

&amp;&amp;&amp;

By Friday they had to admit defeat and team up. It was strange (but the good kind) to lean into Eames a little, watch him chew the end of his pen, the way his eyes lit up when he got an answer. They only managed about half of it on the journey. Despite Eames knowing “You ___ (2004 Celine Dion hit)”.

“I’ll take custody for the weekend?” Eames asked, as they approached his station.

Arthur held onto his edge of the paper. “But what if he misses me? A whole weekend is a long time.”

Eames removed his pen from his mouth with a flourish and scribbled something along the side of the clues. “Fine. But you have to text me to let me know how the two of you are getting along.”

Arthur wasn’t going to use the number. He looked at it every time he got one more answer and thought no, no, this is just too much. But then he remembered how cross Eames had been at not being able to remember “Northward Over the Great Ice writer”, so he sent him a message as soon as he worked it out.

Eames’ reply came 30 seconds later and said, “AHH. I am on Sundays. Sunday h8s me. Luckily I hav sum good beats to help me think. I like to sing along.”

Arthur turned down the Spanish guitar (soothing, no words) he had on, as usual, in the background.

“You are the only thing we have,” he told the paper on his desk.

&amp;&amp;&amp;

On Wednesday Eames said, “Sorry, I forgot to pick up the Times. Can I offer you an ear?”

“What?”

Eames smiled and held out one of the headphones to his iPod. “I figure we’re pretty good at sharing, right? I have the new Basshunter?”

“Oh hell no,” Arthur told him, only putting the ear-bud in when Eames had paused the song.

He put up with about seven seconds of whatever the hell it was the Eames put on next, some horrible, cheery thing that made him think of pink plastic, brittle and false.

“Skip,” he demanded.

Eames rolled his eyes. “You are so picky, love, honestly.” He only ever broke out the pet-names when a little stressed.

The next song was even worse, just fake drums and a very auto tuned girl.

Almost desperately Arthur asked, “Do you have anything with a real guitar in it?”

“Probably not,” Eames said. There was something a little deflated about set of his shoulders as he paused, again. “Let’s just forget it, hey?”

The rest of the journey was awkward, both Eames and his iPod silent. It was nothing like the usual comfortable quiet that they would fall into so easily, just the horrible bmmchhh of Eames’ horrible music and the rattle of the subway car. Arthur had never, not in his wildest dreams, thought that he would miss Eames’ music.

Arthur was in a meeting with his boss when his cell buzzed. And then buzzed again. It kept buzzing on and off throughout the whole hour long meeting. Luckily Dom was a patient man who appreciated Arthur and the work he did, so he just raised an eyebrow and ignored it. Arthur also suspected that Dom had a ridiculous amount of sex with his ridiculously hot French wife, and therefore was inclined to be in a good mood _all the time_.

When Arthur got out he found his inbox full of messages from Eames that all started with a number. He got to “16. With 8-across, the world’s oldest subway system” when he realised that Eames was sending him today’s crossword, clue by clue. He must have picked up a copy between the station and his (lenient but high-powered advertising) office. And then typed them out for him in the epitome of an Eamesian gesture/apology.

When Eames sat down the next morning Arthur took his iPod and said, with a grim determination, “There has to be something on here that I like.”

It did not start well. In fact, it started with ABBA. But Arthur battled on, scrolling past all kinds of horrors. “I’m beginning to think this is actually some sort of weapon specially designed to wound my _soul_,” he informed Eames when he had reached ‘T’ and still nothing.

And then he saw it. He held up the iPod to Eames and said, “Really?”

Eames said, “You can’t hate them. You can’t.”

Arthur put an ear-bud in each of their ears, slightly clumsy because it was hard to look away from the smile unfurling on Eames face.

“I don’t,” Arthur said, and pressed play. Two songs in and he just shut his eyes and let his grin go stupid. It was like being back in college, happy and silly and so very dorky.

When he opened them again Eames was very close, the smooth line of his shoulder pressed against him. “Arthur. I was thinking. Now that you’ve realised that I’m not all bad, and now that we know we’re not destined to hate everything about each other... Well... If maybe you would let me irritate you in a non train based location?”

Arthur thought about shirts and basslines and txt spk. Then he thought about all-caps answers, bitten up pens, sharp eyes, reckless innuendo and the way that they always ended up laughing before the end of the journey. And in the background all the while the tale of Particle Man was being told and Eames had been singing along under his breath for every song so far.

“Maybe we could share a coffee,” he offered. “But you can’t call me pet. I have it on good authority no one actually says that any more.”

“Actually,” Eames said, biting his lip, “I prefer tea.”

**Author's Note:**

> They Might Be Giants rock ~so hard, btw.
> 
> You can leave a comment below or [on its LJ post](http://laliandra.livejournal.com/25836.html)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Say I'm The Only Bee In Your Bonnet, by Laliandra](https://archiveofourown.org/works/531965) by [shiningartifact](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiningartifact/pseuds/shiningartifact)




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